More on American Crime Story

#WomanCrushWednesday: American Crime Story’s Sarah Paulson

Sarah Paulson is absolutely the woman of the moment and so is a clear choice for our #WomanCrushWednesday. A star of both stage and screen, this American beauty has hit the big time with the two anthology series American Horror Story and American Crime Story. The 41-year-old Floridian has inhabited a huge variety of roles in her time and is a damn cool human being off-screen to boot. Here’s just a small selection of reasons why we adore her:

1. She’s a sh*t hot actress.

For any fans of American Horror Story, you’ll already know that Paulson is one fine actress. The sheer diversity of her characters across five seasons would be daunting for an actor – but not Sarah. She inhabits her characters with a depth and truth that is rare to see on television screens. Her portrayal of Marcia Clark, the head prosecutor in the OJ Simpson case, in American Crime Story was overwhelmingly applauded.

–

2. She’s an award winner.

Paulson has been nominated for four Primetime Emmys and has won two Critics’ Choice Television Awards for her performances in Asylum and Freak Show. Portraying Mary Epps, she is part of the cast of 12 Years a Slave who were nominated for the SAG award for “Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture”.

–

3. She’s bloody funny

Although it was cancelled after just one season, Studio 60 on Sunset Strip had a strong following of fans and those people will know a lighter side to Paulson. As Harriet Hayes, devout Christian and star of the fictional sketch show “Studio 60”, she got to show off her comic talents in a role that earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

–

4. She knows no boundaries

On AHS alone she’s played a journalist locked away for being gay who ultimately gives birth to her rapist’s child, the leader of a witch coven who rips her own eyes out and, conjoined twins Bette and Dot. In her own words, “I’ve breastfed a 35 year-old, I’ve had two heads, I don’t think there’s anywhere I’d go ‘I will not do that'”.

–

5. She doesn’t take any prisoners

–

6. She’s going to be on our screens again soon.

Ryan Murphy has confirmed that the subject for the second season of the American Crime Story anthology series will be Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects. Sarah Paulson recently told the press, “I would be more excited than almost anything to have a crack at something else with this same creative team. For me, the idea of treating Katrina as an American Crime Story is incredibly resonant, powerful and accurate. The Katrina story, to me, is a literal American crime. It says something about a uniquely American attitude, and I find it incredibly potent. I’ve begged them, and there have been some conversations.”

#WomanCrushWednesday: Orange is the New Black’s Taylor Schilling

Watch out Swift; there’s another Taylor at the top of our woman crush list this week! In the spirit of #WomanCrushWednesday, today we’re celebrating Taylor Schilling. Best known for her role… read more

More on Features

#WomanCrushWednesday: Orange is the New Black’s Taylor Schilling

Watch out Swift; there’s another Taylor at the top of our woman crush list this week! In the spirit of #WomanCrushWednesday, today we’re celebrating Taylor Schilling. Best known for her role as female inmate Piper Chapman of the hugely popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black, this 31-year-old Bostonian beauty with a brain has sprung from relative obscurity, rocketing into the big leagues over the past few years, and scooping up a number of awards on the way. Here are just 6 reasons why we love her:

1. She got her start in a Meryl Streep movie.

Schilling’s very first feature film role was in the 2007 Streep-led drama Dark Matter. The production may not have been a critical success, but could you ask for a better co-star than Queen Meryl for your first movie?

~

2. She flies the flag for positive LGBT representation.

Even though she’s been gradually transforming into a somewhat unlikeable ‘female Walter White’ figure as the seasons progress, as a bisexual woman at the forefront of a popularly loved show, Schilling’s character Piper in Orange is the New Black has contributed towards more positive, well-rounded representations of LGBT people in the mainstream media.

~

3. She’s fierce without makeup.

Like, really fierce. The nature of her OitNB character (being in prison and all) means that Taylor shoots the majority of her scenes barefaced. “I think it’s very liberating”, she told People magazine about going makeup free for the role; something that many actresses would never dream of. “It knocks away one level of artifice, and I think that is what I appreciate most about acting”, she explained.

~

4. She got to make out with Zac Efron.

Yup, in the 2012 romantic drama The Lucky One (which is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, no less), Taylor plays the mysterious woman in a photograph whom a U.S. Marine falls in love with, and promptly tracks down to start a relationship with. Tay was ‘the lucky one’ indeed, as she got to enact plenty an intimate scene with the musclebound young Efron.

~

5. She’s hilarious.

If you’ve had the pleasure of watching raunchy comedy The Overnight, you’d know what we mean. Schilling shows her funny side in the film, in which she and Adam Scott play a couple whose seemingly innocent invitation to dinner with another couple (Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche)turns into a night of swinging seduction and temptation…

~

6. She feels like one of the family.

We spend so much time catching up with Piper and the gang when binge-streaming Orange is the New Black that we forget she isn’t in fact one of our close personal friends. On that note, we can’t wait for her to return to our screens when season 4 of Orange is the New Black premieres this Friday June 17th, only on Netflix.